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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637521">return to normalcy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy'>smallredboy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bisexual Will Graham, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Internalized Homophobia-ish, M/M, Marriage, Multi, Pining, Post-Episode: s03e07 Digestivo, Will Graham is a Mess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:55:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,234</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637521</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Will tries to be normal after Hannibal's incarceration.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Molly Graham/Will Graham, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Allbingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>return to normalcy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>allbingo:</b> hiding feelings</p><p>i just made will an angsty little man in this one.</p><p>enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="md-end-block md-p md-focus">
  <span class="md-plain">There is a certain struggle in normalcy.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">Will has not seen Hannibal for a year and two days (yes, he's keeping count; no, he doesn't want to see him) when he meets Molly. She's everything he should ever want; a nice woman with a child, desperate to form a new connection after her husband left her, a straight woman who has never in her life been involved in crime. She's as suburban as it gets.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He rushes through every part of it, and Molly accepts it. They burn quickly through phases, much quicker than they should. Dating, engagement, marriage, all in a little over a year. They get married in a quiet ceremony on two years, three months and twelve days since he last saw Hannibal.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He does not have a problem.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He seldom talks about his life before her to Molly. He explains that yes, he was a FBI profiler, yes, he went to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for murders he did </span>
  <span class="">
    <em>
      <span class="md-plain">not</span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span class="md-plain"> commit, and that yes, he knew Hannibal the Cannibal in person. She doesn't ask him more questions than that, like she can tell he's touchy about Hannibal. He hopes he doesn't do anything that tells her more than she has to know. He hopes he doesn't talk in his sleep, he hopes he doesn't go rigid whenever someone mentions him.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He's in a happy straight marriage, and he has a stepson. He's in a happy straight marriage, and he has a stepson, and he's living in his cabin in Wolf Trap, Virginia with his wife and son. He's happy. He should be happy.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He shouldn't be missing Hannibal Lecter. His heart shouldn't ache for carnage and for the man who ruined his life. He still remembers all that rage he channeled towards Hannibal after he framed him, how it spilled out in all the wrong places and ended up with him furiously making out with him in his stupid mansion in Baltimore. He tries not to think about how his fantasies shifted from killing Hannibal to having sex with Hannibal. He tries not to think about the first words he said to Hannibal when he saw him in the catacombs at that damn cathedral.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He tries not to think about Hannibal carrying him through the snow, both of them bloodied from the Muskrat Farm, and he fails miserably. He daydreams about Hannibal's touch and he feels dirty inside out. He's not sure how much of that dirty feeling comes from wanting a man and how much of it comes from wanting a cannibalistic serial killer.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He really does hope Molly can't tell. That Molly can't read through him, can't see him for what he is. He's trying so hard to be normal, to be an average man in an average relationship in an average household, but everything about his life has made that extremely difficult.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He's used to having nightmares. But now they're a lot less abstract and confusing than they used to be. They're to the point— Molly finding out what he is, someone telling her that he's pining for Hannibal Lecter while married to her. He wakes up sweating from head to toe, almost more affected than he was with his normal nightmares, with the stag and the weird feeling all over his chest.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"Will," Molly breathes, rubbing at his back. "Are you okay?"</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He whimpers. "Yeah. Just… nightmare." He shakes his head. "I'm good, I'll go to the bathroom."</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"You've never told me what your nightmares are about," Molly says, and he nearly screams. "Don't you think it could help?"</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"Just…" he starts, biting his lip and staying in bed. "Just… stuff."</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"Is it about Hannibal?" she asks.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He nearly shoots straight, goes rigid, but he manages to calm himself down. "Why do you think that?"</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"I don't know," Molly says, but he can tell she's lying. Has he said his name in his sleep? Fuck, has he called out for him? He hopes not. "You just like, told me you knew him, and I can imagine he must've done something. He is, you know, a serial killer, and all of that."</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He lets out a shaky breath. "It's more complicated than him having </span>
  <span class="">
    <em>
      <span class="md-plain">done something</span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span class="md-plain">," he tells her, rubbing his forehead. "We were… close friends… before I realized what he was."</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He's lying; he's lying so fucking much. Close friends doesn't cut it, and he got attached to him long after realizing what he was. But he can't go and just tell his wife he was— because he </span>
  <span class="">
    <em>
      <span class="md-plain">was,</span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span class="md-plain"> he's not anymore— infatuated by the Chesapeake Ripper while aware of him being so.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"I'm sorry, Will," she says. She pauses. "You just seem very affected by his… imprisonment." She swallows. "You can tell me anything, Will."</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He shakes his head and stands up. "I can't. You wouldn't understand, Molly."</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">(For once, that line doesn't come off as entirely overdramatic. Molly really wouldn't understand. She wouldn't understand that he's in love with a man— it's not like she's ever been openly homophobic around him, but he still doubts she would be completely comfortable with an admission of him being bisexual. And she wouldn't understand his attachment to the man who framed and gaslit him, the man who sent a man to kill him, the man who tried to cut into his brain. He can hear her saying that it's like Stockholm syndrome, minus the kidnapping. Adoring someone who's hurt you.)</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">Before she can continue, he goes to the bathroom. He stays there for long, far too long, really, staring at his reflection. He can hear Hannibal's voice saying for him to give up on normalcy. That being normal is light years away from where he is right now. That he needs to give up on trying to be straight and to be in love with this woman that is nothing short of </span>
  <span class="">
    <em>
      <span class="md-plain">typical.</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He looks at his reflection in the mirror, and he thinks about killing Randall Tier. He thinks about Hannibal's hands on him, his tiny smile as he pushed him against the wall. He thinks about Muskrat Farm and about Hannibal carrying him through the snow— he thinks about Hannibal feeding him soup. He looks at his reflection, and all he can think about is how much he misses not being normal. Of being made of carnage and hatred and an adoration for this monster known as the Chesapeake Ripper.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">He gets out of the bathroom, his hands shaking. Molly is nursing a cup of tea in her hands; he's lost track of time. He almost laughs at the thought of having encephalitis once again.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"Tell me, William," she urges, her lip trembling.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"Wally's already went through enough," he starts as he settles on one of the corners of the bed, like he's ready to flee the scene. "Promise me to not look for a divorce as soon as we're done here?"</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">Molly tilts his head and smiles at him. "I promise, Will."</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain md-expand">He draws in a shaky breath. It'll be a sanitized version, because there's only so much he can tell her, but he has to. And hopefully she doesn't go running. Hopefully she just sees him as some broken thing that needs fixing so he will stop obsessing over an evil man. Maybe that's right, even.</span>
</p><p class="md-end-block md-p">
  <span class="md-plain">"Well," he starts. "It began with a killer known as the Minnesota Shrike."</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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